


Pride Bubbles

by samcat



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Pride, Pride Parade, Work, queer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 03:52:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10454361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samcat/pseuds/samcat
Summary: "And soap bubbles, James! I don’t know if I simply missed it last year or if it’s a new thing, but a lot of the people standing on the sides were blowing bubbles at us as we walked past them."





	

Bill flipped through a newspaper and stopped at a page taken up entirely by a picture of this years’ London pride parade. And right smack in the middle of the crowd was... Q.

“So you’re a queer then?”  
“What did you think the Q stood for?” Q smirked at him across the room.  
“Yes, honestly, Bill,” James walked in. “Did you really think Q stood for Quartermaster?”  
“Impeccable timing as always, James.”  
“Thank you, Q.”  
“Well, yes,” Bill said. “I did believe that actually.”  
“That’s just a smokescreen,” James said.  
“I see that now.”  
“But don’t call me ‘a queer’, please,” Q said. “Queer is fine, but not ‘a queer’.”  
“Noted.”  
“Fantastic,” Q smiled. “So,” he turned to James. “What reason do you have to come bother me today?”  
“I’m just stopping by to return this,” James said as he walked over to Q and placed a gun on the desk in front of him.  
“Broken, of course,” Q sighed. “But I’m glad you found it again, at least. How do you even manage to misplace a gun? Your flat isn’t that big.”  
“Focus on the positive,” James shrugged. “I found it again.”  
Q shook his head, but smiled. “Fine. I’ll see if I can get this mended in time for your next mission. Otherwise you might have to make do with a regular gun.”

“Shouldn’t you be, like, avoiding photographers?” Bill asked, not having paid any attention to the conversation that had gone on without him. ”You’re working for the intelligence services, like the rest of us. Surely it’s not a good thing to have your face blown up in a newspaper like this?”  
“I’m not out as much in the field as you lot are, however. And honestly, as far as a lot of people are concerned, I might as well be an AI based on the work I do,” Q said and pushed up his glasses. “I don’t think I need to worry about someone recognising my face based on my tech. And I don’t have a habit of including a replica of my face in the codes I write, either.”  
“Fair enough, I suppose,” Bill said. He folded up the newspaper and got up to leave. “I can see James is itching for some alone time with you, so I’ll leave you two to it.”

“Why was he in here, anyway?” James asked once Bill had let the door swing close behind him.  
“He wanted to read the newspaper in peace and, as it happens, my office is the only peaceful place here,” Q shivered slightly. “Lord knows the break room is anything but peaceful.”  
James laughed. “Don’t think I’ve ever actually been in it, so I wouldn’t know.”  
“Consider yourself lucky.”  
“Done.”  
“Good,” Q smiled at him again. “So, what else did you come here for? You rarely linger unless you’re after something.”  
“Ouch, that hurt. But you’re right,” James said. “I was going to ask you for a favour. But right now I’m more interested in hearing about what the parade was like.”  
“Oh, you should have come,” Q said, excited over the opportunity to talk about it. “I mean, I understand that you couldn’t have, but really, James. It was amazing,” he did a little pirouette on the spot and waved his hands around as he spoke. “There were even more people than last year, although at the same time it somehow didn’t feel quite as cramped as it did then. I suppose we were all more evenly spaced out this time. And I believe the complaints I had sent in worked, because there were far fewer people in the parade smoking this year. It was very nice to be able to walk together with everyone without feeling like I was going to suffocate, let me tell you.”  
James laughed again, but didn’t say anything to interrupt.  
“And there were so many people watching the parade! Children especially, reaching their hands out and getting high-fived by every other queer person that walked by,” he grinned at the memory. “And soap bubbles, James! I don’t know if I simply missed it last year or if it’s a new thing, but a lot of the people standing on the sides were blowing bubbles at us as we walked past them. In fact, I’m surprised there weren’t any soap bubbles in the picture that the newspaper used. I would have thought that the rainbows you could see inside them would have been a nice visual addition.”

He stopped to take a breath. “I speak too fast for my own good sometimes. Where was I?”  
“You were telling me about the newspaper’s poor choices of pictures.”  
“Ah, yes. Honestly, I would like to have a word with whoever was in charge of deciding what picture to use. I’m flattered that they chose one with my face in it, but there were so many opportunities during the parade to get a more aesthetically pleasing one.”  
“I doubt it. Your face is remarkably aesthetically pleasing,” James said with a wink, imitating Q’s voice slightly at the last two words.  
Q rolled his eyes at him, but didn’t argue with the statement.

“I walked behind two young girls for a while and couldn’t help to overhear one of them tell the other that they had seen their dad in the crowd before the parade started. She sounded very surprised about the whole thing.”  
“Well, that’s certainly one way to come out to your kid.”  
“I’d say. Although I don’t think it was deliberate.”  
“Any more gossip you picked up from eavesdropping on young girls?”  
“No, just that,” Q laughed. “And I think that was all the noteworthy things I had to talk about.”  
“Thank you for the recap.”  
“Not at a problem. Now, will you tell me what favour it was you wanted to ask from me?”  
“I was going to ask you to walk with me back home. It’s a lovely evening.”  
“I’ve still got work to do, you know.”  
“Bring your laptop. You can work from home.”  
“Fair enough. But how is this a favour, exactly?”  
“I’d like the company. But I figured since you went to pride all by your lonesome and you usually travel home on your own…”  
Q shook his head. “I’d love to walk back home together with you. It would be a nice break. But I really do need to get back to work once we get home.”  
“Of course,” James offered him his arm. “Shall we?”


End file.
